Starring Sushi of West Hollywood at Ari-Ya, UMAI

Albacore Jungle with Sauteed Onion, Jalapeno, Garlic

Baby Lobster Special Roll

Baked Crab Hand Roll

Rock Shrimp and Eggplant Appetizer

Featuring Two of West Hollywood's Best Sushi Bars

In the heart of West Hollywood, two particularly fabulous sushi bars known as Ari-Ya and UMAI practically host their own Halloween parties every year. And each year, as all the fun-loving freaks and colorful characters come out of the woodwork in droves for the spooky season’s festivities, these two establishments—located on Santa Monica Boulevard, which gets shut down for the annual Halloween street party—overflow with such convivial carousing and creative costumes, you feel for a second as though it’s almost too crazy…even by West Hollywood standards.

Although their menus may be altered on this specific holiday night for the sake of efficiency, on regular days, the sashimi plate known as the “Albacore Jungle”—piled high with sautéed onion, jalapeno and garlic—can be requested at Ari-Ya for $16. A chef tells me another popular dish is their $16 Baby Lobster Special, which is a spicy tuna roll covered with langostino and then drizzled with sweet eel sauce and laden with green onions on top.

Ari-Ya offers a baked crab hand roll for $7 that’s simply to die for: one bite and you are suddenly able to come to terms with all that’s wrong with L.A.—the traffic, the congestion, the cost of living—because at this very moment, as the spicy creamy mayonnaise, avocado and fresh real crab melt in your mouth, the perfectly seasoned sushi rice harmoniously coalescing with the soy paper, it dawns on you that this is one of the things that is just right about living in the Southland: being close to food like this.

Just for fun (and when is it not for fun in WeHo?), you have a choice between the Superman Burrito and the Tempura Burrito, both wrapped with soy paper and containing a base of sushi rice and avocado. (I am informed by the chef that the Superman version is more popular, as it contains spicy tuna and baby lobster, whereas the Tempura Burrito has shrimp tempura, asparagus and imitation crab).

If you happen to stop by during lunch, the “kitchen special” menu may catch your eye—appetite-satiating portions are served at reasonable prices starting at $9.99, and the choices range from black cod misoyaki to grilled albacore steak, all served with miso soup and salad. For $4 more, you even have the option to add mixed tempura or a sushi roll (the standard spicy tuna, California, or Shrimp Tempura roll; or perhaps the mysterious-sounding one called the Crunch Ari-Ya).

For those curious to try an unusual appetizer at Ari-Ya (and don’t mind a hot dish and an inundation of spicy mayo—which I don’t), I recommend the Rock Shrimp and Eggplant special, which is as tasty as it is unprecedented (at least I’ve never stumbled upon such an unusual marrying of ingredients thus far in my Japanese restaurant journeys).

Ari-Ya

8730 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood

310-854-6212

Note: As of 2014, Ari-Ya has been replaced by a sushi restaurant called NORI

In the Spirit of Halloween: UMAI of WeHo

UMAI of West Hollywood

Picasso Roll

Inazuma Roll

Albacore Extreme Sashimi

Seared Salmon Sushi with Salmon Eggs and Shiso

UMAI Sushi of West Hollywood

Less than half a mile away, UMAI features even funkier creations such as the Picasso Roll, a deep-fried roll without rice, meaning the spicy tuna, salmon, snow crab and grilled asparagus inside are wrapped directly with seaweed and then lightly tempura-fried. For years, the entire concoction was presented on top of vividly colorful sauces made of citrus, bell pepper and jalapeno; I heard that these days, eel sauce and ponzu sauce have at times been the substitute (and yes I wholeheartedly support that we Picasso Roll fans clamor to get our tricolored sauces back).

The Inazuma Roll, for $16.50, is another one of my old favorites at this joint, frankly because I’m a huge fan of the toppings: slivers of multicolored bell peppers mixed with red onions and a thick, zesty ginger sauce. The roll itself is a seared tuna-topped monstrosity, with spicy shrimp and avocado tucked inside. It’s headily indulgent as well as healthy: a rare combination.

If you dig albacore served sashimi-style, why not go for the Albacore Extreme for $17? For a seared fish dish can seldom go wrong when it’s smothered with crispy fried onions, roasted garlic and sesame ponzu sauce.

Another winner (I special-requested this off-the-menu version): the seared salmon sushi with sesame sauce, garlic ponzu and eel sauce, upon which glistening ikura sit, adhered by sticky dollops of Japanese mayonnaise. At first glance, the green bits sprinkled on top may appear to be chopped green onion, but they’re actually minced shiso, which lends a refreshing contrast to the rest of the roll’s flavors.

With extensive outdoor seating and holiday-appropriate décor already set up at UMAI, it’s easy to see this haunt is getting well-prepared for one of its busiest party nights—as it is, after all, a WeHo Halloween tradition.

UMAI

8935 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood

310-276-9638

Cheers at Kanpai Japanese Sushi Bar & Grill

Fruity Albacore Sashimi

Seared Sorbet Tuna Sushi

Japanese Glass Shrimp Sushi

Japanese Scallop Sashimi with Truffle Citrus Sauce

White Fish Sushi with Black Summer Truffle

Sweet Shrimp Sushi

Kanpai!!! at Kanpai on Lincoln Boulevard

I love sushi bars. But particularly, I am fond of sushi bars that offer daily menus on sheets of paper marked with the date along with the title “Today’s Specials.” Restaurants like these give an impression of freshness, of ever-changing variety. Restaurants like these tend to cater to discerning tastes and are, therefore, a bit on the high end in price, but well worth the splurge.

Kanpai Japanese Sushi Bar and Grill of Los Angeles is such a restaurant. Even though it’s been two years since my last visit there and six years since my first tasting, Kanpai’s mercurial menu continues to amaze me. Although many of the same fancy ingredients recur, such as truffles, kombu, caviar, yuzu, and that dark brown dressing that the chef calls their “special soy sauce,” it is their seafood selection that I find really impressive.

From spotted sardine to baby yellowtail, orange clam to pike and Japanese glass shrimp, Kanpai carries breeds of fish that in most sushi restaurants are practically unheard of.

Yet for an upscale dining locale, Kanpai shows that it also has a casual and fun side, with menu items like the Sushi Pizza, and the LMU Roll (named after the nearby Loyola Marymount College) which has deep-fried sweet potato inside and is topped with eel and avocado.

Kanpai, which means Cheers in Japanese, is certainly cheerful on most nights, perhaps because the place serves more than 20 premium sakes from Japan, which most likely contributes to its incredibly boisterous atmosphere. In addition, the joint is open everyday until 1 a.m. 

Although memories of my favorite sushi at Kanpai had not yet faded—halibut with yuzu pepper, snow crab with sesame mayo, salmon with basil sauce—I was more than willing to try some of the new items I had never before seen on their Specials menu: the Fruity Albacore Sashimi for $23 (I learned this dish is fruity because it incorporates figs) and the Seared Sorbet Tuna Sushi for $8 (sweetly seasoned and oddly meaty in appearance). Even the menu dictates that both of these are a Must Try!!!

The menu also declares the Japanese Glass Shrimp sushi is a “rare item in the U.S.A.” With its dubious appearance, this delicacy may taste like shrimp, but its squiggly and soft texture has a strange melt-in-your-mouth effect that suggests something not quite shrimplike.

The Japan Scallop Sashimi with Truffle Citrus Sauce for $18 was some of the freshest scallop I’ve ever had, while the white fish with black summer truffle was inspiring. But nothing could have completed the meal better than good old-fashioned sweet shrimp, whose beheaded state was visible right on the sushi bar—rows of twitching heads and antennules, displayed as a display and as a dare (Do you dare try me?).

For the uninitiated, sweet shrimp is normally served as both sushi and as a crunchy afterthought, with the shrimp bodies laid raw on top of rice nigiri-style, followed by the heads which are deep-fried and presented with ponzu sauce for dipping. At Kanpai, the heads are plated with the sushi in their pre-fried condition as adornment as much as for effect, and then later the server asks, “Did you want to eat the heads?” To this I understandingly nod, knowing he would take them to the fryer.

Personally, it’s my style to masticate as much of the prickly fried heads as I can, but leave the unchewable parts and hardest-to-digest spiky bits behind. Kanpai!

Kanpai

8325 Lincoln Blvd., Los Angeles

310-338-7223

A Grand Welcome to Sushi World

Located in Cypress, CA

Anaheim Chili Tempura Roll 

Hand Roll with Chopped Tuna and Yellowtail

Albacore Sushi

Baked Blue Crab Hand Roll